Catholic or Protestant?

[nancylebov]

http://redbird.livejournal.com/802605.html?nc=1

It's like the forms in Northern Ireland that would ask, not about actual religion/ethnicity [2] but whether the person would "be perceived as" Catholic or Protestant. When Rysmiel and papersky told me about those, I said I would need a "don't know" box, and they both confidently told me that, in that context, I would be perceived as Protestant.

rysmiel? papersky? Anyone else familiar with Northern Ireland who knows me?

Would I be perceived as Catholic or Protestant? If it will go into words, why?

Aside from being intrigued by the whole thing, I've gotta know whether I should be outraged by _The Da Vinci Code_.

Comments

[redbird]

You may already know this, but neither of them is from Northern Ireland: rysmiel is from the Republic, and papersky is Welsh.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Definitely a brainfart, or at least I knew papersky is Welsh. I'm correcting the original post.

[redbird]

Also, it occurs to me that the reasoning may be "papersky would be taken as Protestant, and she and redbird look enough alike that people think they're sisters" rather than anything specific about my features or coloring (or other attributes).

[avram]

You’d only have to appear to be outraged.

wow, it's just like the joke...

[sethg]

A guy's walking through Belfast, minding his own business, and feels a gun in his back.

"Catholic or Protestant?" the voice behind him says.

"I'm Jewish!"

"So are you a Catholic Jew or a Protestant Jew?"

Re: wow, it's just like the joke...

[nwhyte]

I actually am from Northern Ireland, and have spent some time dealing with such questions. (Though oddly enough my grandmother was born in Philadelphia.)

First off, it only applies to people from Northern Ireland. So I don't think it has a lot of relevance since, if I am not mistaken, you are an American.

Second, the problem in Northern Ireland is constructed as a historical legacy of discrimination against people who were perceived to be Catholics. Normally this would mean those who went to Catholic schools, attended Catholic churches, voted for mainly Catholic political parties. So those who are visibly not Catholic are more likely to be perceived as Protestant.

All firms with more then ten employees are required to monitor the make-up of their workforces and report it to the relevant government body. A job applicant who feels that he or she failed to get the job because of their "religion" (ie their perceived Catholicism/Protestantism) can take the company to court, and the company then has to be able to prove that the decision was a fair one. The strictures on government hiring are even stronger.

The results have been pretty successful: not only has the unemployment gap between Catholics and Protestants measurably closed over the last 30 years, but the unemployment rate in Northern Ireland generally is now pretty low (which gives the lie to the libertarian arguments that such measures will inevitably hurt business).

The downside, of course, is that people are categorised in one of two ways (though it should be emphasised that this is restricted to the field of employment monitoring and has no other impact on daily life). Since Jews are obviously not Catholic (and indeed tend to go to schools where most of the pupils are Protestants rather than those run by the Catholic church) they are inevitably perceived as Protestants. So the joke sethg_prime tells is not realistic: most Jews in Northern Ireland are "Protestant Jews" as far as employment law is concerned.

The alternative punchline to the joke is, of course, that the guy with the gun says, "Well, that makes me the luckiest Palestinian in Belfast!"

Re: wow, it's just like the joke...

[madfilkentist]

The results have been pretty successful: not only has the unemployment gap between Catholics and Protestants measurably closed over the last 30 years, but the unemployment rate in Northern Ireland generally is now pretty low (which gives the lie to the libertarian arguments that such measures will inevitably hurt business).

It's impossible to change just one variable in real life, so the conclusion doesn't follow, at least not just on that much data. A better question might be whether being officially identified by the government as Catholic or Protestant can really have "no other impact on daily life." I find it extremely implausible that having one's legal status based on one's "religion" wouldn't help to perpetuate the sense of being in two conflicting tribes. As with affirmative action in the U.S., such measures give people an incentive to regard themselves as part of a victim class. Common sense on the part of the people the government is labeling can still work against this, so the results can go either way.

Re: wow, it's just like the joke...

[nwhyte]

Well, opponents of the fair employment did and do make the "change just one variable" argument, asserting that the extra costs for business would be crippling. Obviously they were not.

The government has not created the sense that people are in two conflicting tribes. That was already there, no matter what the government did. The question is, what steps can the government reasonably take to try and reverse past grievances and prevent them from coming up again? A confidential note of what side you might be perceived to be on, attached to your personnel file at work and visible to nobody else, is not exactly the same as forcing people to wear big yellow stars.

Do youn really think people did not feel victimised before affirmative action was invented?

Re: wow, it's just like the joke...

[annafdd.livejournal.com]

John Conroy in his superb "Belfast Diary" tells of being asked rather agressively on bonfire night if he was Protestant or Catholic. Now, he is an agnostic American visitor, of Irish Catholic descent but who hadn't seen the inside of a church in years and had very little repect for the Catholic Church. He said he was a Jew, and noted that that was probably the first time somebody had pretended to be Jewish in Europe in order to escape religious persecution.

Re: wow, it's just like the joke...

[supergee.livejournal.com]

Alternate punchline: I'm the luckiest Arab in Belfast.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I feel sure you would also be percieved as Protestant.

I can't off-hand think of any Jewish people I know who wouldn't be. Mind you, I can think of some US Catholics who would also be percieved as Protestants... and some who wouldn't.

It's a really weird distinction when taken out of context.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Protestant, without a shadow of a doubt.

I think at least part of it is a bone structure/face shape thing, and what that suggests about ancestry. It amuses me muchly, frex, that tnh registers as clearly Protestant on this radar.

[sturgeonslawyer.livejournal.com]

Nobody else seems interested in answering this:

I've gotta know whether I should be outraged by _The Da Vinci Code_.

Well, of course you should. It's a lousy book and the movie is a waste of major talents (Jean Reno, Audrey Tautou, etc.)

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Now that I know I'm a Protestant, I don't have to worry about _The Da Vinci Code_, but I do need to choose a denomination.

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

UU is technically a Protestant Denomination, if today a non-Christian one as a sect.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I considered UU, but I don't think it's Christian enough for the purpose.

[ms-daisy-cutter.livejournal.com]

And you can put those little rubber things on the end of your cock, too!

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Um. I'm from Northern Ireland and have never heard of such forms: there used to be forms that would ask for religion, but they were banned as people would use the results to discriminate.

If they've gone on to ask for perceived religion/ethnicity, then that's a seriously backwards step, I'd say.